A blog reader wrote me and asked for help with adding pieced sashing in Electric Quilt projects. Let’s just get this out of the way first — I love EQ and though I know I could piece quilts without EQ, I can’t quite imagine doing so. It is one of my most valuable quilting tools. If you don’t have it, I can’t imagine that you wouldn’t love it. I think it saves money to have it because I can plug my own fabric choices into a quilt and decide if it’s going to look like I think it will look before cutting all the fabrics and frustrating myself with combinations that do not work. I know what you’re all thinking . . she knew it was going to look like that and she did it anyway? 🙂
To add pieced sashing to a design, just drag a pieced block from your sketchbook into the sashing space and drop it there like you would a block into a place where you’re going to put a block. You can use any block but I often will draw out just a portion of a block to make it fit.
Remember this quilt? It has affectionately become known as the boomerang quilt and you can read the story on my old blog about it, if you haven’t already read the story. I love this quilt and I love the story about how it ended up back in my possession. Oh . . yes . . I love Vicky too! 🙂
See how those are plain Friendship Star blocks. This his how they would look without any sashing at all, set on point.
Not very exciting, huh? Here’s how it would look with plain, non-pieced sashing.
A bit more interesting. But, look what happens when you add a pieced sashing. This is exactly how the boomerang quilt was made.
Are you able to see what type pieced sashing I used? It’s simply a stretched quarter square triangle. Start with this:
Make it the size you need it to be. If your blocks are 9″ and the sashing is 2″ wide (all finished sizes), then your stretched quarter square triangle would finish at 2″ x 9″ (2-1/2″ by 9-1/2″ unfinished).
Same technique I used in this quilt:
And, if you really don’t want to figure it all out on your own, you can order my pattern, Stars in the Meadow, or ask your local quilt shop to carry it!! It’s the design below . . which is a square version of The Glistening Rose Garden quilt shown above.
One more example of pieced sashing. This is the quilt I’m currently working on and have been showing my progress.
It looks a whole lot better when the lines are removed. I left them there so you could see where the sashing ended and the blocks begin.
For my own use, adding a pieced sashing – even a very simply pieced sashing as shown in these examples, will greatly enhance the appearance of traditional, everyday nine patch blocks.
